Alpines

May 22, 2012 2KHz, London, England

Words by Sean Moeller, Illustration by Johnnie Cluney, Recording engineered by Ian Grimble and Richard Matthews at 2KHz at Church Studios, Crouch End, London

The music of South London group, Alpines, is guarded by wolves. They are wolves the size of which you've never seen before. Picture in your mind the very biggest of wolves that you've ever seen or had to conjure before - the only limits of which are the parameters of your imaginative skills - and you can immediately go ahead and times that by one hundred and you're still only halfway to the real size of these wolves. They are not to be fucked with and there they sit, day and night, guarding the music made and played by Catherine Pockson and Bob Matthews.

It's all quite impressive - that such bombastic and anthemic music could be made by two people and also that such music requires guardsmen not only in the form of wolves, but guardsmen that are actual, feral - though well-trained and responsible - wolves. They are card-playing and bourbon-sipping wolves when they are off-shift, but they are creatures that rarely require much time away from their duties at the feet of Pockson and Matthews. They are entertained simply with their duties of protection and the occasional writing credits that they pick up when the sentiment for a hook just isn't hitting right and they call on the full moon to offer up some guidance.

Alpines songs are brimming with lustrous moon glow - majestically snow-capped and able to reverse the direction that rivers travel in with a side glance of the eyes. Don't believe me, just ask the guard wolves.